>There are no factors that would indicate that one should NOT normalize their database design.
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>All relational database designs should be normalized fully. The issue is not whether to normalize or not, it is what to do after you have a fully normalized database design. The process of normalization (which is often given a bad reputation by folks who aren't completely clear on exactly what normalization is) optimizes a data design for data entry and updating and reduces the possibilities and likelihood of update and insert anomalies at the cost of possibly reducing performance on data retrieval. Normalization also discovers certain design errors that would go unnoticed if the normalization was not done.
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>Once a fully normalized design is reached one needs to evaluate the functional requirements of the system being designed and then decide if and how far to back off from the fully normalized design to provide an acceptable data retrieval performance.

I like this. This is the way I generally work, but I'd never heard that that's what you were supposed to do.

Thanks for the info.